Greg Dulli brings Twilight Singers home to Tipitina's

On Mardi Gras 2010, Greg Dulli, the former Afghan Whigs and current Twilight Singers vocalist, approached the corner of Ursulines and Chartres streets in the French Quarter. Towering above the crowd on stilts was a frightening “Wizard of Oz” flying monkey.

Greg Dulli, a part owner of the R Bar and a parttime resident of Faubourg Marigny, fronts the Twilight Singers at Tipitina's on Friday, June 3, 2011.

“That Mardi Gras was a pivotal moment in my life, as well as the city’s,” Dulli recalled recently. “It was one of the happiest times of my life in a lot of ways. I wanted to document it.”

He had only a cell phone camera with him. So months later, he tracked down the monkey man through an acquaintance and persuaded him to re-create the costume on the same corner.

The resulting photograph appears inside the Twilight Singers’ new “Dynamite Steps” (Sub Pop Records). It is not the only mark New Orleans left on the CD.

After first visiting in the 1980s, Dulli, an Ohio native, has spent nearly a quarter-century residing, composing, recording and misbehaving in the Big Easy. He’s documented his adventures and impressions with literate, unflinching confessionals and a desperate, morning-after soul man’s rasp.

As the Afghan Whigs ran out of steam, he concocted the Twilight Singers in New Orleans as a manifestation of his after-hours exploits and regret-filled mornings along the Lower Quarter/Faubourg Marigny axis.

Four years ago, he bought a house in the Marigny. He and a business partner also purchased the R Bar, just off Esplanade on Royal Street, expanding a portfolio that includes two barrooms in Los Angeles, where he also maintains a residence.

In October, he kicked off his first-ever acoustic tour at d.b.a. on Frenchmen Street. On Friday, June 3, Dulli and the Twilight Singers conclude a 50-date tour of Europe and North America with a homecoming show at Tipitina’s.

Five years have elapsed since the Twilight Singers’ previous album, “Powder Burns.” The making of “Powder Burns” straddled Hurricane Katrina. Dulli snuck back into town days after the storm to retrieve the tapes; additional recording was powered by generators.

He wrote and recorded “Dynamite Steps” in New Orleans, Bogalusa and three California locales: Los Angeles, Arcadia and Joshua Tree. The result is yet another compelling, richly textured sonic journal.

In the opening “Last Night in Town,” Dulli is the devil whispering on your shoulder. The guitar squall of “Waves” immediately gives way to the intimate opening piano and strings of “Get Lucky.”

New Orleans directly inspired “Blackbird and the Fox” — it features fellow Big Easy transplant Ani DiFranco — “Never Seen No Devil” and “Gunshots.”

The three songs “could not be more different than each other, and they mean different things,” Dulli said. “Trying to wrap New Orleans up in one sentiment is completely impossible. It is a five-dimensional city.”

His writing studiously avoids clichés; you’ll find no gumbo, streetcars, crawfish or Carnival. His lyrical sketches are impressionistic rather than idealistic. “I’m more interested in my own nuanced take on my surroundings when I’m there.”

The “you” and “baby” he addresses is not a woman, but the city itself. He considers New Orleans the “mother” of the Twilight Singers. It is mistress and muse as well. The city, he says, “goes with you wherever you go.”

Twilight Singers recordings range from the “stainless steel” precision of the group’s debut to messier affairs. On “Dynamite Steps,” the electronic elements are subtle.

“It’s under the surface. It’s not as overt as the first record. I wanted it to be a bit more warm-blooded and human. In a lot of ways, it was the perfect melding of the sounds that I’ve been trying to reconcile for the last 10 years. It had European dance stuff in it, yet was still very rock ’n’ roll and warm-blooded.”

Splitting his time between Los Angeles and New Orleans provides him with two inspirational settings.

“They’re two sides of a similar coin. Both are tropical climates, multi-cultural, relatively liberal and open-minded, very artist-friendly. Coming from Ohio (to New Orleans), one of the first things that I was attracted to outside of the weather was open-mindedness and sense of community. I’ve never seen a town so fiercely proud as New Orleans.

“People help each other. For such a metropolis, it still feels like a small town. Some of my best friends live there. I feel very safe and loved in New Orleans.”

Over five albums, the Twilight Singers have taken many forms. The current incarnation features guitarist Dave Rosser and cellist/violinist Rick G. Nelson, both local residents, as well as drummer Greg Wieczorek, a former resident.

Some 40 songs have passed in and out of the set list on the tour that ends June 3 at Tipitina’s.

“We’re really good right now,” Dulli said. “If you were ever going to see me play, now is the time.”